In ’Romeo Akbar Walter’, alas, the melodrama overpowers the narrative and what should ideally have been an exciting couple of hours at the theatre are nothing more than a laborious watch. Romeo Ali (played by John Abraham) has a mundane job as a bank employee, but he is good at theatrics and manages to make time for stage plays.

It’s a trip to exchange dead bodies delivered to wrong addresses. Avinash (Dulquer Salmaan) has clearly lost his mojo – his is a mundane existence, stuck at a desk job he doesn’t enjoy. Enter Shaukat (Irrfan Khan), his slightly eccentric but ‘good-at-heart’ friend who owns a minivan and offers to drive him down for his father’s last rites.

The hallmarks of the ‘Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster’ franchise have been intrigue, longing, betrayal and revenge. This one has the biwi (Mahie Gill) holding the reins of the erstwhile empire and commanding a hefty clout as the elected local politician. Saheb, Aditya Pratap Singh (Jimmy Shergill), is behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit and seething with rage at his wife’s manipulative ways.

Four hip and happening girls and Bollywood’s favourite canvas – a big fat Indian wedding – you wonder what could go wrong! But so much effort goes into making them appear “cool”, that I doubt if the director was left with the time and space to put any thought into the actual plot. When Kalindi Puri (Kareena) decides to tie the knot, her BFFs come together to attend a typical extravagant Delhi wedding.

John Abraham and Boman Irani try their best, but fail to keep us invested in this historical drama. Inspired by true events – India’s first successful nuclear tests conducted at Pokhran in 1998 – ‘Parmanu’ has an interesting premise, but the story progresses at a sluggish pace.

Raj Kumar Gupta brings us an interesting story, but it is just not gripping enough. If I were to compare this story to a similar one in recent times, I think Neeraj Pandey’s ‘Special 26’ (2013) comes close. While the raid in ‘Special 26’ was a fake one, the intrigue and build-up was something that kept the audience invested.